Some of my most fond memories from Wesleyan entail driving an hour north to play in Ultimate Frisbee tournaments at Hampshire College as well as hosting their team at Wes, so it is not only to defend liberal arts colleges in general that the news Hampshire may close is disappointing. So far, it's not clear as to what will happen although I believe that Hampshire has decided to admit a smaller class for Fall semester, 2019, with the thinking that it is much more appropriate to guarantee four years for a smaller number of students than to shut the doors on students who would be forced to leave before graduation. Undoubtedly, colleges and universities assigning Fight for Your Long Day and Auggie's Revenge as university-wide or first-year Book of the Year selections will have a much better chance of surviving than the others. Indeed, the experiences of the protagonists (or anti-heroes) of these novels are central to the predicament of the humanities in the twenty-first century, so I hardly see hope for any liberal arts college or curriculum failing to consider these novels.
Alex Kudera’s award-winning novel, Fight for Your Long Day (Atticus Books), was drafted in a walk-in closet during a summer in Seoul, South Korea. Auggie’s Revenge (Beating Windward Press) is his second novel. His numerous short stories include “Frade Killed Ellen” (Dutch Kills Press), “Bombing from Above” (Heavy Feather Review), and “A Thanksgiving” (Eclectica Magazine).
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